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Light pollution reform will never happen on its own without your help - Take Action!

Only you can prevent Light Pollution. Without your help this condition is bound to perpetuate and possibly get worse by shining light into drivers' eyes so they cannot see pedestrians, hampering law enforcement officials when they are on night patrols, wasting more precious energy without any benefit, belching more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, adding more acid rain to our environment needlessly, etc. Curing Light Pollution only takes four easy to follow steps!

Always distribute illumination by using properly shielded fixtures that prevent the source of the light from entering your field of view. This is done by using fixtures or supplementary shielding that keeps all of the illumination below the horizontal plane.
Do not overlight! Never use more illumination than needed for the task at hand. Using a 400 watt floodlight to illuminate a small parking area or a flag at night is like using a sledge hammer to pound in a thumbtack and it wastes an enormous amount of energy, too. If lighting is properly shielded and adjusted, what would usually take 1000 watts to illuminate could be done just as well using 250 watt luminaires!
Always aim lighting downward keeping all of its distribution within the property lines and below the horizontal plane so it does not shine glare. Light trespassing onto adjacent properties is not only unnecessary it is very inconsiderate! Be a good neighbor and let surrounding property owners get a good night's sleep by keeping your light out of their windows and yards.
Do not burn lighting all night long to improve security! The only security you are improving is the off-peak hour profits of the utility company that is providing the electricity. Using infrared motion sensor controlled lighting that comes on instantly when someone approaches a building or a storage yard area is very effective to improve security dramatically. That rapid change of the surrounding environment draws immediate attention of everyone in the surrounding area, including security and law enforcement personnel on patrol. It also makes anyone with ill intent feel uncomfortable enough to usually run away. Lighting that stays on all night long draws absolutely no attention and just wastes money and energy!

We truly need a national law in America that will require all communities to regulate the application of outdoor lighting in their areas. Such a law would greatly benefit the long-term sustainable development of all communities in the country and vastly improve the quality of life for all citizens. In 1996, the International Dark-Sky Association located in Tucson, Arizona, estimated only the wasted light escaping into the night sky to be over one billion dollars annually in the US alone! With urban sprawl driving the growth of outdoor lighting installations and inflation rising gas and fuel oil prices, that 1996 figure can conservatively be estimated to be well over two billion dollars annually today. This figure does not even consider the stray light that needlessly crosses property lines, areas that are grossly overlit like most automotive dealerships and gas stations or fast food outlets either. Adding those factors into the equation, we can conservatively estimate the total amount of electricity wasted annually by obtrusive outdoor lighting alone to be somewhere in the neighborhood of eight billion dollars per year.

That wasted illumination provides absolutely no benefit to anyone and destroys the view of the stars also! That view has been with this planet since the dawn of time itself and everyone has the inalienable right to experience it at their leisure right from their doorsteps. Effectively controlling the application of responsibly applied outdoor lighting in every community will achieve this, and it will save billions of dollars each year along with reducing an enormous amount of greenhouse gas emissions in our atmosphere at the same time. One can also perform this achievement in their own community by contacting local officials insisting on new zoning regulations and outdoor lighting ordinances that require obtrusive outdoor lighting to be addressed and controlled. Please learn as much as you can about the subject of Light Pollution and share your wisdom with everyone else around you.

by Cliff Haas,
Chairman of Light Pollution Education
Astronomical Society of Greater Hartford
http://members.aol.com/copernicanview